
20 Reasons Authentic Thought Leadership Is So Important In B2B
When the insight is real and the voice is clear, people pay attention. Below, Forbes Agency Council members share why true thought leadership matters more than ever. Read on to learn how and why it helps B2B leaders rise above the noise rather than blend into it.
True thought leadership positions B2B leaders as trusted experts, not just sellers. By sharing valuable, forward-thinking insights, they build credibility, nurture relationships and stand out in a crowded market. In my opinion, LinkedIn is ideal for this. It enables sharing content with a targeted audience, boosting engagement and authority. - John Readman, ASK BOSCO
B2B leaders can leverage and amplify their influence when they center thought leadership on insights that share strategic learnings and keys to unblocking success. The goals are twofold: Showcase your particular methodology or point of view while helping others succeed. - Talie Smith, Smith & Connors
True thought leadership differentiates genuine industry experts from superficial content creators, positioning B2B leaders as authentic voices worth following. A powerful but overlooked medium is podcasting, providing a personal, engaging way to regularly deliver deep insights directly to professionals seeking trusted expertise. - George Arabian, NVISION
A bylined article in a respected trade publication is one of the most effective ways B2B leaders can reach their audience with credible, useful insights. It's targeted, searchable and often picked up by AI tools. Thought leadership isn't about promotion—it's about building trust by showing you truly understand the challenges your audience faces. - Christine Wetzler, Pietryla PR & Marketing
Forbes Agency Council is an invitation-only community for executives in successful public relations, media strategy, creative and advertising agencies. Do I qualify?
B2B thought leadership needs to be thoughtful and compelling to position your brand at the center of industry conversations. By creating what I call a 'company you keep campaign,' leaders establish credibility beyond self-promotion. A branded interview series allows you to curate influential guests, shape discussions around mutual expertise and own the conversation while expanding reach. - Kathleen Lucente, Red Fan Communications
In B2B, people buy trust as much as they buy solutions. Thought leadership shows that you get their world—and have ideas worth stealing. It builds your credibility before the sales pitch begins. One killer medium? LinkedIn posts are short, sharp, personal wins—no fluff, no jargon, just real insights that spark conversation. - Justin Belmont, Prose
Thought leadership has always been important for brand building, but it is now absolutely critical for earning inclusion in large language model AI answers and gaining mindshare with potential customers. The most effective way to do that is by creating entity associations via schema markup that tie your unique perspectives across media properties to your brand. - Toren Ajk, TAC Marketing Group
Most B2B 'thought leadership' is recycled best practices—safe, shallow and already done. Old ideas repackaged as clickbait. Real leaders help others navigate a rapidly changing world with clarity and a panoramic perspective. The medium will—and should—vary by industry and end goal. Where you show up depends on what you're trying to shift, spark or solve. But the mandate remains: Lead what's next. - Shanna Apitz, Hunt Adkins
People don't trust logos, they trust people. Thought leadership gives leaders a way to build credibility, not by selling, but by showing up with a perspective. LinkedIn remains incredibly powerful for this. It's not about perfectly produced posts; it's about showing your point of view consistently. When done right, it builds a magnetic personal brand that benefits the entire organization. - Jacquelyn LaMar Berney, VI Marketing and Branding
Thought leadership is crucial because it positions you as a go-to source of knowledge, helping you stand out. It's better to be micro-famous than anonymous! A great way to achieve this is through guest posting, guest writing and appearing on podcasts or public platforms with large, broad audiences. This strategy helps you reach your target B2B audience with valuable, non-promotional insights. - Austin Irabor, NETFLY
Thought leadership positions B2B leaders as credible and forward-thinking people who drive change and set trends. Besides traditional approaches like publications and events, LinkedIn influencer marketing is an effective approach to reach out to an engaged and interested B2B audience. Influencers speak in a personal and authentic manner that catches the audience's attention. - Michael Kuzminov, HypeFactory
True thought leadership builds trust, authority and long-term relationships—key drivers in B2B decisions. Publishing insightful articles on LinkedIn is an effective way to share valuable, non-promotional knowledge and consistently reach and influence target audiences. - Boris Dzhingarov, ESBO Ltd
B2B leaders who engage in authentic thought leadership build trust, credibility and influence in their industry. They attract and engage decision-makers by sharing insights and expertise, not just promotions. One medium that continues to be effective is LinkedIn, where long-form posts, articles and videos can reach ideal personas, spark discussions and position leaders as authorities. - Elyse Flynn Meyer, Prism Global Marketing Solutions
Thought leadership is the cornerstone of a strong PR program, positioning your company and its executives and subject matter experts as the authorities in your space. This approach increases awareness of—and respect for—your brand. LinkedIn is the place to be when it comes to building thought leadership—posts that crowdsource, videos and polls are especially engaging and algorithm-friendly. - Jodi Amendola, Amendola Communications
Op-eds, podcasts and speaking gigs are great outlets for non-promotional thought leadership. What matters is choosing the one that reaches your target audience in the best way. When you think of a company like Google or Salesforce, you always know who the CEO is behind it. That's because building your leadership as an expert in your field is the surest way to create credibility for your company. - Ayelet Noff, SlicedBrand
B2B leaders must lead with insight to build trust, shape perception and stay top of mind in long sales cycles. True thought leadership drives credibility, not clicks. YouTube is a strategic channel as it blends global reach, SEO and engaging video to deliver expert content that educates, connects and converts over time. - Amy Packard Berry, Sparkpr
Many see thought leadership as a way to position themselves or their brand as an industry expert. What's often forgotten is how it gives direct insight into the audience's reactions. Since it often challenges industry norms or competitors, you might want to know how customers respond. LinkedIn is a great place to connect with like-minded individuals and gauge their views. - Nataliya Andreychuk, Viseven
Thought leadership in B2B is critical for the simple reason that people still need (and want) to partner with people—actual humans. Behind every successful B2B organization is someone leading the charge. In the AI age, when businesses can seemingly pop up overnight, being able to put a face to a B2B entity helps build trust faster than any volume of content or social media posting ever could. - Bernard May, National Positions
Aligning with the buyer's committee has always been a critical stage in a B2B sale. LinkedIn remains the best platform for thought leaders to engage with B2B decision-makers. A combination of videos, posts, articles and polls, along with engaging discussions with B2B decision-makers at virtual events, plays an important role in building a community around a B2B product. - Oksana Matviichuk, OM Strategic Forecasting
If you're focused on price, service or capabilities, you're just speaking to buyers, not other leaders. Leaders engage with ideas that help them improve their business, understand their markets and think about what is possible for the future. Smart leaders know that there is no single medium to focus on to share their thought leadership. They need to be active everywhere in our multichannel world. - Thomas Faust, Stanton
Hashtags

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
a few seconds ago
- Yahoo
3 Reasons Why the Crypto Market Isn't in a Bubble (Yet)
Key Points Some people are concerned that there's a crypto bubble. Bitcoin is currently valued fairly on the basis of one important model. Major cryptocurrencies still haven't broken their former all-time highs. 10 stocks we like better than Bitcoin › Every few years, a soaring asset earns dire comparisons to tulips or to tech stocks in 1999. With Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC) now above $118,000, up 407% in the last three years, those warnings are back. Getting the timing wrong can mean missing years of upside, or, worse, buying just before the music stops. But the market probably isn't in a crypto bubble just yet, on the basis of three reasons in particular. Together, these factors doubtlessly signal enthusiasm in the market, but not the runaway fervor that defines a bubble, so let's examine each of them. 1. The "rainbow" chart The rate of Bitcoin's creation of new supply falls by 50% roughly every four years in an event called the halving. By throttling new coin generation, each halving tends to reset the market's supply-demand balance, so prices often trace a loose, approximately four-year rhythm spanning both before and afterward. Thus, it's possible to use the data on how the coin performed both before and after prior halvings to create a framework for projecting the future price at a given point in time. On that front, BitBo's well-known Halving Price Regression (HPR) chart, often known as the "rainbow" chart, turns those rhythms into a visual gauge. This illustration aims to both predict Bitcoin's future performance, and to position its current price in relation to where it was after the same amount of time since past halvings. It does this by anchoring a logarithmic regression curve to Bitcoin's price on each past halving date, and then it extrapolates the trend forward in time. The curve is wrapped in seven color bands: The blue band hugs the trend line; it implies the market is pricing Bitcoin roughly "on schedule" compared to past halving cycles, suggesting that it's neither underpriced nor overpriced. The green band sits one tier higher and represents periods in which the coin is of a moderately high valuation relative to the amount of time since the most recent halving, but likely still worth accumulating. The yellow, orange, and red bands each track further and further above the long-term trend, marking zones where price runs one, two, or three-plus years ahead of halving-based expectations; when the coin's price is in these bands, it's at higher and higher risk of reverting to the mean rather than continuing to trend higher. At today's level, Bitcoin is planted in the green band, at least two tiers beneath the yellow, orange, and red hot zones that coincided with blow-off tops in late 2021 and 2017. In short, based on the rainbow chart, the coin seems to be priced appropriately, given the halving cycle's current status. This relatively cool reading suggests that Bitcoin's market sentiment is currently upbeat, but it's very far from being euphoric. 2. Market leaders haven't reclaimed their old peaks Bubbles usually begin when the flagship assets smash fresh records and refuse to look back. And that is quite simply not what the cryptocurrency market shows today. Ethereum (CRYPTO: ETH) trades near $3,700, roughly 25% under its November 2021 high of $4,878. Solana (CRYPTO: SOL) is priced at around $200, still 32% below its 2021 peak of near $293. It's true that they've gained a lot in the past three months -- just look at this chart: However, that still doesn't change the fact that they haven't even tested their all-time highs yet, although these peaks are likely to come over the next 12 months. If household-name coins can't break into uncharted territory, a sustained frenzy like in a bubble is much harder to spark. Yes, a few exotic meme coins are sprinting ahead, but they always do, and there haven't even been any truly egregious runs this year yet. A genuine bubble needs blue-chip cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, Solana, and Ethereum to set and then break records. Until that happens, the probability that the entire market is wildly overpriced remains much lower than a few of the more excited headlines imply. 3. Big money is only starting to dip its toes True bubbles form when most deep-pocketed investors are both fully allocated and leaning on leverage to maximize the possible returns from their positions. The crypto market is nowhere near those milestones. Per a survey conducted by Coinbase in March, 86% of institutions intend to hold crypto, yet only 59% plan to allocate more than 5% of portfolios to cryptocurrencies this year, and, as of mid-July, very few have actually done so. Corporate crypto treasuries are similarly modest, at least for now. A grouping of roughly 130 public companies hold about $87 billion of Bitcoin, equal to just 3.2% of coins that can ever exist. During a real bubble -- where people start to believe that the prices of crypto assets can never go down significantly ever again -- the allocation to Bitcoin among companies would likely be dramatically higher than it is now, with more than a handful of public businesses holding it on their balance sheets. Until that happens, and practically every company is announcing a Bitcoin treasury strategy, it's hard to believe that the crypto market is very frothy at all. Do the experts think Bitcoin is a buy right now? The Motley Fool's expert analyst team, drawing on years of investing experience and deep analysis of thousands of stocks, leverages our proprietary Moneyball AI investing database to uncover top opportunities. They've just revealed their to buy now — did Bitcoin make the list? When our Stock Advisor analyst team has a stock recommendation, it can pay to listen. After all, Stock Advisor's total average return is up 1,037% vs. just 182% for the S&P — that is beating the market by 855.37%!* Imagine if you were a Stock Advisor member when Netflix made this list on December 17, 2004... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $634,627!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $1,046,799!* The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years. Don't miss out on the latest top 10 list, available when you join Stock Advisor. See the 10 stocks » *Stock Advisor returns as of July 21, 2025 Alex Carchidi has positions in Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Solana. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Solana. The Motley Fool recommends Coinbase Global. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. 3 Reasons Why the Crypto Market Isn't in a Bubble (Yet) was originally published by The Motley Fool Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data

Yahoo
a few seconds ago
- Yahoo
3.6 million HydroTech hoses under recall because they can burst during use, injuring 29 consumers
NEW YORK (AP) — About 3.6 million hoses are under recall across the U.S. because hundreds have burst while being used, resulting in at least 29 injuries, including reports of temporarily impaired hearing. The recall covers a range of HydroTech-branded, 5/8-inch 'Expandable Burst-Proof Hoses' that were sold at major retailers — including, Amazon, Walmart, Home Depot and Target — for garden, lawn care, car washing and other uses between January 2021 and April 2025. The company said the hoses can burst if the interior, plastic strain relief 'breaks or becomes fully unthreaded.' According to a Thursday notice from the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, the recalled hoses pose potential impact and hearing hazards because they can burst unexpectedly. Winston Products, which imported the hoses, has received at least 222 bursting reports to date — resulting in 29 injuries, 'including one bone bruise, two sprains and five reports of temporarily impaired hearing from the sound of the hose bursting," the CPSC notes. Consumers in possession of the recalled hoses are urged to stop using them immediately. If the hoses were purchased at Ace Hardware, Do It Best, Home Depot or Walmart, Thursday's recall notice adds, consumers can bring them into those stores to return the product for a full refund. Other impacted shoppers should contact Winston Products to initiate a claim online. The hoses under recall were sold in various lengths and colors, but can be identified by date code markings and product names listed in Thursday's notice. The recall only covers 'HydroTech 5/8-inch Expandable Burst-Proof Hoses' made on or before August 31, 2024. The Associated Press Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Yahoo
a few seconds ago
- Yahoo
LKQ Shares Crash To 52-Week Low On Slashed Outlook
LKQ Corporation (NASDAQ:LKQ) shares plummeted over 21% on Thursday after the automotive parts distributor reported second-quarter adjusted earnings that missed analyst expectations and significantly cut its full-year guidance, citing ongoing macroeconomic headwinds and a lack of recovery in North American repairable claims. The company reported second-quarter adjusted earnings per share of 87 cents, missing the analyst consensus estimate of 92 cents. Quarterly sales of $3.64 billion (down 1.9% year over year) was in line with the Street view. North American organic revenue outperformed the market even as repairable claims across the entire industry declined 9%. In Europe, LKQ Corporation has replaced more than 25% of the leadership team and continues to focus on reducing costs, rationalizing SKU's and enhancing revenue opportunities, including entering into a strategic partnership to expand our salvage business. Also Read: TransUnion's Upbeat Outlook Shines Through Market Uncertainty Organic parts & services revenue declined 3.4% year‑over‑year (2.7% on a per‑day basis). Acquisitions and divestitures trimmed revenue by 1.0% while foreign exchange rates added 2.3%, resulting in a net 2.1% decrease. The company said its focus on cost reduction measures has resulted in more than $125 million in costs taken out over the past 12 months with an additional $75 million targeted for 2025. Gross profit in the quarter under review remained relatively flat on a year-over-year basis to $1.412 billion, with gross margin flat at 38.8%. View more earnings on LKQ Adjusted EBITDA in the quarter under review decreased to $423 million from $429 million a year ago. The company exited the quarter with cash and equivalents at $289 million, and inventories worth $3.394 billion. As of June 30, 2025, the balance sheet reflected total debt of $4.5 billion, and total leverage, as defined in credit facility, was 2.6x EBITDA. On July 22, the company declared a quarterly cash dividend of 30 cents per share of common stock, payable on August 28. Outlook In North America, the company is not seeing a recovery in the repairable claims and tariff uncertainty continues. In Europe, general economic softness and geopolitical unrest are drivers of an uncertain environment. LKQ cut its fiscal year 2025 adjusted EPS guidance to $3.00-$3.30 from $3.40-$3.70, falling short of the $3.52 consensus estimate. Organic revenue for parts and services is expected to decline in the range of 3.5% to 1.5% (prior view: growth of upto 2%). The company's stock has hit a 52-week low of $32.78 following its earnings report. The key factors behind the decline were a miss on adjusted earnings per share and a revised, lower outlook for the full year, both of which have unsettled investors.